VRM in the States: Electronic Registration

Electronic Registration is a key component of Voter Registration Modernization. It allows state election officials to automatically register consenting eligible citizens by electronically transmitting reliable information from other government lists.

February 3, 2017

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Electronic Registration, sometimes known as Automated Registration, is a key component of Voter Registration Modernization. This gives citizens the choice to be electronically registered to vote at the same time they do business with a government office, such as apply for a driver’s license or state veterans’ benefits, by digitally transferring their voter registration information to the appropriate elections office. This will upgrade our system, eliminate errors caused by paper records, and clean up the voter rolls.

At least three states, Delaware[7], Illinois[10], and Kentucky[38], have, or soon will have, electronic registration at social service agencies in addition to the DMV.

38 state DMVs automatically register all eligible young men for the Selective Service, as do a variety of other federal and state agencies.

Thanks to a 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, every state now has (or soon will have) a computerized statewide voter registration database capable of sharing information in some form with other government databases.